London Screenings 2022

Love In The Flesh

Type: Format
Length: 8 x 60 minutes
Producer: Ten66 Television
Broadcaster: BBC3 (UK)

Hosted by a dating show veteran – Love Island’s Zara McDermott – Love In The Flesh sends the hugely popular genre in a new direction from the classic formula of singletons fraternising on a sun-soaked island.

Drawing on online dating, the series explores the growing trend of young people building romantic attachments to their online matches for weeks, months and even years before ever meeting up. Put simply, Love In The Flesh asks: can online chemistry translate to the real world?

The eight-part commission – one of the flagship orders for the newly returned linear BBC3 – delves into whether meaningful relationships can be cultivated via dating apps. Bringing together six couples who have previously matched online but have not met in person, the series puts their relationships to the test by taking them on a first date in a Greek villa.

The couples then spend three weeks living together to develop their relationships, undertaking challenges that will test aspects of their union and discussing the differences in dating behaviour when there are no filters or screens to hide behind.

If participants don’t like their original match, they can look elsewhere in the group.

Produced by UK indie Ten66 Television, Love In The Flesh is exec produced by creative director and founder Rukhsana Mosam, alongside Andrew Robertson.

The show promises a big departure from what audiences have seen before and is an evolution of the dating format, says Nick Tanner, head of sales and co-production at Passion Distribution. With cruelty on TV and producer interference under the spotlight and no longer cutting it with younger audiences, Tanner says, Love In The Flesh’s unfabricated set-up is a key differentiator.

“There is a much greater demand for a genuine and more authentic approach to this kind of entertainment,” he says. “It’s definitely different from other, far more constructed and produced shows of this nature.”

Passion head of acquisitions Seán Wheatley says the show’s motivation is a desire for the couples’ relationships to work, rather than creating as much drama as possible.

Diversity was also a key driver for producer Ten66, with the indie casting carefully for participants and relationships that “feel and look real”, according to Mosam. “As a female-led company, it was important that the images of women that are promoted are more natural than in a lot of other dating shows,” she says.

While dating is in demand from buyers globally, English-language markets are a “high priority” for Passion, with Tanner hoping the fresh take will cut through in territories where dating shows have become a “tired” part of the local TV landscape. The show’s focus on relationship-building, rather than the aesthetic of scantily clad participants, makes it an attractive proposal for different markets, particularly those that are traditionally more conservative.

“This could provide a more acceptable way into that TV community because of its authenticity, and open up markets that are underserved by reality TV,” Tanner notes.

Hot Picks

Killer At The Crime Scene

Type: True Crime
Length: 8 x 60 minutes
Producer: Spun Gold
Broadcaster: Channel 5 (UK)

Channel 5 has gone big on true crime docs in recent years. From Countdown To Murder to Murder In A Small Town, Murder Files and Murdered By…, the genre has become a core part of C5’s offer.

One of the latest to land is Killer At The Crime Scene, which debuted on spin-off channel 5 Star in August.

The series focuses on the crime scene itself, exploring how specialist forensic teams and detectives collate evidence at the scene of a murder to find vital clues to catch killers.

Combining expert contributors and interviews with police, as well as archive footage and reconstruction, the series tells the story of challenging murder cases that have been presented to the authorities.

For example, it looks at how light-source technology and fibre analysis led to the conviction of murderer Stephen Marshall, known as ‘The Jigsaw Killer’, who dismembered his victim and scattered the body parts across Hertfordshire.

Executive producer Matt Young says it stands out from other true-crime series for the way it places the audience in the hours after a crime has been committed, and how it reveals the work of the investigators.

Access to the detectives during the investigations is key, says Young. He also cites the participation of Sarah Thirkell, a leading forensic expert, and the inclusion of testimony from some of the victims’ families for putting a human face to the events.

Passion Distribution boarded the series having worked with Spun Gold before. Head of acquisitions Seán Wheatley says: “It isn’t a typical true-crime series. The focus on science means this can reach a different audience as well as your archetypal ‘true-crime’ follower. We felt this scientific approach would engage male audiences in a way that some other shows may not.”

Passion director of sales and co-productions Nick Tanner says Killer At The Crime Scene’s blend of closed-episode stories, volume and points of difference make it suitable for “prime-time scheduling on linear channels, and strong usability for thematic channels, particularly in northern Europe territories and across CEE”.

1000 Years of History

Type: Factual
Length: 6 x 120-minutes
Producer: Middlechild Productions, Lambent Productions, Raise the Roof Productions
Broadcaster: Channel 5 (UK)

Telling the 1000-year story of six of the Earth’s most intriguing nations is no mean feat and it took three producers to do it justice for Channel 5’s forthcoming tentpole.

In a rare move, the trio of the broadcaster’s – Lambent Productions, Raise the Roof Productions and Middlechild Productions – forged two episodes each for 1000 Years of History, an epic re-telling of an entire millennium as the ViacomCBS-owned channel pushes deeper into the history space.

Fare Dodgers producer Middlechild profiled Australia and the US, Secrets of the Royal Flight indie Lambent examined Russia and China, and Glasgow-based Raise the Roof took up the Scotland and Ireland mantle. Each episode traces the history of its chosen nation via specific themes rather than necessarily taking viewers through a chronological re-telling.

The US instalment focuses on indigenous people, European settlers and the birth of democracy, while Australia will trace a nation home to the aboriginal people, moving through to the rapid expansion of today. Meanwhile, the China and Russia offerings both reveal lesser known secrets about two of the globe’s oldest and richest nations.

Nick Tanner, who heads up sales and co-productions for the show’s distributor Passion Distribution, says the triple-indie structure demonstrates the “unique and ambitious nature” of the show, which he describes as an “epic tale”. “Whether about furious conquest or the outsized contribution of a small group of Atlantic islands, each of these places has a cultural resonance that affects us all,” he says. “This is a perfect fit for Passion’s strategy to get behind differentiated, ambitious and also relatable content.”

Tanner also hails the level of craft exhibited by indies, who were able to provide more than a simple linear re-telling. For example, the US episode uses the mid-Twentieth Century period to tell the story of civil rights more generally, which will then refer back to other historical eras such as the slave trade and an even earlier assessment of the Americas as a continent.

Sitting alongside other Passion history docs such as Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial, the series has just been taken to market.

Rather than one specific episode being shopped to a territory, Tanner stresses that it will be sold mainly as a package of six episodes, as the distributor targets the territories featured in the programme.

“It’s always interesting to receive an outsiders’ point of view about your own backyard,” he adds.

While Passion has seen an uptick of interest in historical programming since Covid-19 swept across the world, accelerating a trend that had already been in motion, Tanner also hails the new-found respect C5 has garnered internationally under programmes director Ben Frow.

“C5 has a fantastic vision and an amazing ability to reach British audiences that have perhaps been underserved in recent years,” he adds.

Secret Wars Uncovered

Type: Factual
Length: 10 x 60-minutes
Producer: CIC Media
Broadcaster: Sky History (UK)

Secret Wars Uncovered is one of many history docs on Passion’s slate. The 10-part series from CIC Media digs deep into the archive to shine a spotlight on the shocking facts behind battles that have been hidden from the wider world.

Fought for dubious political intent or for outright illegal motives, these are the most controversial and covered-up conflicts fought by major powers since the end of World War Two.

The featured skirmishes, all of which have taken place in living memory, span the globe covering Crimea, Yemen, Somalia, Laos, and Central America.

With the extent of the war often remaining undocumented, Tanner likens the series to iconic predecessor Unreported World.

“This draws back the veil on major conflicts and looks at how politics has changed as result, lending a particular perspective to events that may not have been covered in the mainstream press to the extent they should have been,” he explains.

Having recently premiered on the nascent Sky History channel, Passion is targeting thematic history and current affairs networks and SVoDs around the world, with a focus on those featuring modern history series.

He said the distributor is targeting the countries featured in the show but “if the conflict is ongoing or there are strong reverberations then it may not be appropriate”.

“We take a considered and sensitive approach to how we position it in each territory,” adds Tanner.